Why Your Brand Needs a Mobile First Strategy

As mobile increasingly dictates how people access information, it is becoming clear that brands need a Mobile First Strategy when it comes to marketing

There is a great need to integrate mobile with business. If you are still on the fence about the mobile needs of your brand, you need to understand one thing about human behavior: anything that makes life convenient and streamlines the flow of information is vital for survival. Today, it is mobile that fulfills that role. Not only are people increasingly depending on mobile for information, they’re using it for just about any activity previously achieved through other mediums. Now, you can order takeout on your mobile, book movie tickets, pay for your groceries and manage your data. This is, of course, besides the traditional function associated with phones – communication. Clearly, then mobile is not going anywhere and the sooner your business has a Mobile First Strategy, the better.

Of course, adopting a Mobile First Strategy is not as simple as setting up a mobile-responsive website (although, mobile websites and mobile landing pages are incredibly important). What is required is a thoroughly overhaul of the approach to marketing. With mobile, communication becomes more intimate. Consumers are accessible anywhere and at anytime, and while this sounds brilliant for mobile marketing purposes, it is a bit of a double-edged sword.

However, aside from taking care of mobile-related privacy and transparency concerns, when it comes to a Mobile First Strategy, brands also need to remember the following points:

Mobile can enhance the in-store experience: While in-store staff has traditionally been used to help customers make purchases, there are some definite advantages to using mobile technology to that. One of these is being able to provide customers with a media-rich experience, using pictures and videos. The other is being able to keep in-store costs down.

Mobile facilitates brand-consumer communication: This goes back to what we said about mobile’s basic function: communication. Using mobile technology such as QR codes and NFC, brands can create deeper and richer engagement with their consumers.

Mobile can streamline payments and loyalty programs: Loyalty programs that continue to rely on physical cards continue to be a major irritant to both consumers and brands. These cards are easy to forget at home or misplace. Similarly, long payment queues at check-out counters can also be annoying. Both these irritants can actually be handled by simply implementing mobile alternatives. If your customers are collecting loyalty points but forgetting about them, simply send them a message when they are near your store. To help speed up transactions, install mobile payment kiosks.